By Marion Roach Smith
IT’S NOT TRUE that Meg Waite Clayton wrote the book on sisterhood. In fact, she has published not one but two, and has just sent the third to her editor. “The emotional turf I seem to go back to again and again is sisterhood in the friendship sense,” Meg, the author of the national bestseller The Wednesday Sisters, told me during a recent email exchange. [click to continue…]
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By Margaret Roach
Matchboxes and tissue-box covers decoupaged with sistery ephemera.
THE SISTER PROJECT ON THIS PAGE STARTED WITH A LAMPSHADE. True. I brought a lamp in need of a new shade in to a local shop called Shandell’s, where owner Susan Schneider makes custom shades and other things out of vintage and vintage-inspired papers and fabrics. In the process of picking material to recover my shade, I caught a glimpse of Susan’s treasure trove of ephemera—things collected over 20 years by this self-professed “packrat”—and thought wow, what a sister story some of the bits could probably tell. I guess I said it out loud, and my offhand remark got Susan thinking. [click to continue…]
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THIS SISTER CAN REALLY WIELD A NEEDLE AND ALSO THE LOVE, whether in her practice as a small-town country doctor in Canada or in her nature-inspired crafting—weblike crochet work, charming embroidery on thick, colorful felt, and all manner of sewing and knitting creations. Margie (short for Margaret) Oomen is the gentle genius behind the popular blog Resurrection Fern, and a force of nature herself online among the web’s most creative pairs of hands. [click to continue…]
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'Bite Me' cookbook authors, sisters Lisa (left) and Julie
By Marion Roach Smith
THE SISTERS DIDN’T SO MUCH AS DROP THEIR WHISKS when I reached them while they are out on book tour. It seems they can type with kitchen utensils in their mouths, while packing and running off to the next interview, making me adore them even more than I already did after reading about their new cookbook entitled Bite Me. [click to continue…]
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Photographer Erica Berger is the longtime best sister-friend of TSP’s Margaret Roach. We asked her to share the images she did for People magazine in 2001 of a sisterhood formed by loss, that of the 9/11 widows, to mark the eighth anniversary. Let Erica tell the story, and let her slides speak for themselves.
By Erica Berger
WHEN I WAS ASSIGNED THE PROJECT by People magazine, I was reminded of what my mother asked me years ago when I worked at The Miami Herald: “Why do they always give you the religion and dying stories?” [click to continue…]
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"Chelsy & Melissa"
REDHEADS NOTE ONE ANOTHER on the street. We check each other’s freckle distribution and eye color. And while no redhead goes unnoticed in any room, it is only another redhead who notices these exact details. Rare as we are, we are always on the lookout for another of our breed. Maybe it’s because we’ve heard so many sentences that begin, “Typical redhead, you’re so….” Artists have always noticed us, too, and though perhaps the artist who loved us most was Pre-Raphaelite painter Dante Gabriel Rosetti, an artist we adore these days is photographer Julia Baum, who, for nearly two years, has been working on a portrait series called “A Rare Breed,” consisting entirely of natural redheads (like herself). [click to continue…]
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By Anastasia Smith
WHEN TSP RECEIVED AN EMAIL from Shelley Kommers with the subject line “Sister Artwork,” we were startled: Had Shelley, known in the Etsy world as Oiseaux (meaning bird in French), seen us lurking in her shops and sites somehow? Magic! Shelley had attached two mixed-media pieces about sisters, Strawberry Park (above) and Sí, Alguna Vez Fue Un Ave (“Yes, She Once Was a Bird” in Spanish), the former, she explained, created as a representation of herself with her own sister, Carrie (and look whose little arm is around whose bigger waist). No wonder Shelley defines “sister” as “someone you’re stuck with in the best way.” Those original images were just a glimpse into a portfolio, and a world, rich with sisterhood imagery, one we are excited to share here. [click to continue…]
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Black lemurs
I KNEW RIGHT AWAY I’D FEEL A KINSHIP with Jennifer Rae Atkins when I found her blog, The Daily Mammal, and saw in the faces of the animals she draws that she feels a kinship with all of nature, a siblinghood that crosses species boundaries. In that “takes one to know one” way (to use an expression that biological sisters or “best” friends might have spit at each other growing up), Jennifer seemed familiar, because each of her animals was depicted with its soul shining through (not just its nose and eyes and fur). I knew she took time to learn about them—not just copying old drawings but channeling the animals, through her own hand, and heart. And so (in this wonderful era) I just said a digital hello. Come get to know this very special sister better. [click to continue…]
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WHEN WE READ HER POEM ‘SHEDDING’ not long ago, The Sister Project invited documentarian Anna Clarke (above), a sister-friend to our own Anastasia Smith, to curate a small show of poems, including hers. Let Anna Clarke take it from here:
Since I am an only child, my real sense of feminine connection stems from my bond with both my mother and grandmother and thusly, an understanding and fascination of my female lineage. These selected poems speak to that alternate understanding of sisterhood, the ongoing quest to make connection with women outside of one’s given siblinghood. These poems, a tribute to mothers, grandmothers, and the historical and spiritual notion of womanhood, seek to identify and celebrate several ways in which one can feel like a sister.
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NOW SHOWING: Popular chef GILLIAN CLARK
First time here? Here's the idea: The Sister Project is a network of blogs about the many facets of the word sister, and the concept of sisterhood. A sisterhood of sister blogs, you could say. Whatever sister means to you, from identical twin to sister-in-law (or in friendship or in feminism), we’ll make room to listen in about it or express it on TSP. Like the slogan up top on our homepage says, “Don’t you have something to say to your sister?” We've got galleries of art and literature by and about sisters, and a Sisterpedia of sisterly trivia...but now we're getting ahead of ourselves. The quick study: Learn more about TSP, and how to find your way around. And oh—a giant, sisterly welcome.
As the suffix of its name suggests, TSP's Sisterpedia
is the reference section, one we’re hoping you’ll help us grow to maturity by adding your knowledge in the comments. Turn us on to new facts and figures, whether for the branch of our ‘library’ called Sistory (history from a sister point of view, from the Muses of ancient Greece to 60s Girl Groups and beyond) or the one called Sibling Science (what makes sisters tick, genetically and behaviorally). Or just click around and have a good read. See you there.
